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On August 8 forms were distruibited to UVF units
on which they could sign up for service and on the 11 August
a large advertisement proclaiming 'Your King and Country needs
you' appeared for the first time in the Belfast News-Letter,
along with the news of the new 'pals' battalions being formed
in England, in which groups of friends enlisted together.
Throughout August a number of the UVF who were
impatient to serve in the army joined up before the decision
was made to create a division of the 'New Army' out
of the Ulster Volunteers.
Newspapers of the time had shown that the UVF
were the best prepared civilians in Britain to go into the
army and train for battle and this fact of the UVFs potential
had not gone unnoticed by Lord Kitchener, for two days after
his appointment to secretary-of-war, Kitchener sent for Colonel
T.E. Hickman MP, president of the British League for the Defence
of Ulster and told him : "I want the Ulster Volunteers".
Hickman
recommended that Kitchener see Edward Carson. The meeting
was arranged and throughout it Kitchener and Carson argued
about the Home Rule issue, with Carson keen to hold out for
a political deal before fully supporting the war effort.
Carson also insisted that if the UVF were to be recruited
then they were to be kept together as a unit and the prefix
'Ulster' was to accompany the number of the proposed brigade
of division.
At the end of August after the continued debating of Carson
and Kitchener a deal was struck which enabled Carson to return
to Ulster and invite his volunteers to sign up in large numbers
for service abroad.
The deal was that although the Home Rule bill would pass
on 18 September a guarantee was given that it would not be
made operative during the war and that there would be an amending
bill introduced in the next parlimentry session to give parliment
the chance to alter its provisions to accommodate the needs
of Ulster.
At an Ulster Council meeting in Belfast on September 3, Carson
announced the formation of the 36th (Ulster Division).
Recruitment was to begin immediately at the Old Town Hall
and at civil buildings all across Ulster. The men would be
trained initially in camps at Ballykinler, Clandeboye and
Newtownards in Co.Down and at Finner in Co.Donegal and they
would be enrolled in territorial units formed out of the local
volunteer regiments.
Whilst
those who joined up and went abroad to fight, sufficient members
of heUVF would be kept organised and alert at home to take
care of Ulster and ensure that it was not invaded.
From its newly acquired Head quarters at 29 Wellington Place
in Belfasts City Centre, the Ulster Division began the task
of forming into an army. Three Infantry brigades, twelve Battalions
in all were to be formed.
Three field company's of the Royal Engineers, a Signal Company,
and Royal Army Medical Corps personnel were to be recruited.
Royal Army Service Corps, Cavalry and Cyclist sections were
to be established in the Division. Whereas all the bodies
were to be formed primarily of Ulstermen and the Divisional
artillery was to be recruited in England.
The UVF had no artillery and it was thought that considerable
delay would be caused by raising and training an artillery
in Ulster, so the 153rd and the 145th Brigades, Royal Field
Artillery were to be recruited from Croydon, Norbury and Sydenham
and the 172nd and 173rd Brigade were to be from East and West
Ham.These four Brigades of Londoners were not to join the
rest of the 36th (Ulster) Division until the following year.
The Commander of the 36th was Maj. General C.H.Powell, a former
Indian officer with Captain Wilfred Spender becoming a General
Staff Officer and the now Lt. Colonel James Craig the Assistant
Adjutant and Quarter Master General.
Three Infantry Regiments and their Territorial base in Ulster
- the Royal Irish Rifles in the East of the Province, the
Royal Irish Fusiliers in the South and the Royal Inniskilling
Fusiliers in the West, so the 36th Divisions Infantry would
be compromised of Battalions from all three.
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